Fatal Last Words

Seventy-four

As they approached the ugly grey monolith that was Torness power station, and the even uglier cement factory beyond, Bob Skinner sat in the passenger seat of his car and fretted. ‘This is one single inquiry, Neil,’ he muttered. ‘I don’t know how, but I feel it in my water. The deaths of these two authors and of Asmir Mustafic are tied together, I’m sure of it. The link is General Tadic, indirectly, through the man Coben, and through Hugo Playfair, or Lazar Erceg, as Boras says he’s really called. But I don’t know how they tie together, and I don’t know why they were killed.’

‘Or by whom?’

‘No, that’s easy. Coben’s our man; thanks to the cigar salesman, we know he was in Edinburgh last week and that he bought Henry Mount’s cigar box. We know his background, and that tells me that he’s well capable of rigging that Havana. He’s moving among us, Neil, this fucking man, openly, and yet we don’t know who he is. Come on, chum, help me here. What else don’t we know?’

‘This joint project,’ McIlhenney replied, ‘that Glover and Mount are supposed to have been involved in: we don’t know what that’s about. The only hint is that Glover was asking questions about people in the Balkans.’

‘There you are, that ties in too. Go on.’

‘According to one of young Haddock’s sources, Ainsley said that it was about “The cleaner”, whoever the hell he is, she is, whatever.’

‘More information, good. What else?’

‘There might have been a third person in the project. Sammy says that Mount and Glover asked Fred Noble if he wanted to play, but he said he was too busy.’

‘Did they tell him what it was about?’ Skinner asked eagerly.

‘He says no, that he didn’t want to know, so that he couldn’t let anything slip accidentally.’

‘Noble said that? Can anyone confirm it?’

‘Glover’s agent can’t. All he told her was that they were working on it and it was big.’

‘What do we know about her?’

‘We know she didn’t kill Glover. She was in London when he died. Forget her.’

‘What do we know about Fred Noble?’

‘He’s a best-selling author, the most successful of the so-called Triumvirate, although he hasn’t been around for as long as Glover or Mount. He moved to Edinburgh six years ago, and-’

‘Six years ago? After Frankie Coben was supposedly killed?’

‘Yes, but he didn’t kill Glover either. He was on telly when he died.’

‘Who says our man is acting alone? Didn’t you tell me you were looking into someone’s movements on the night?’

‘Ed Collins, Carol Glover’s fiancée.’

‘The boy who works for the Saltire?’

‘Right.’

Skinner snatched up his mobile from the central console, retrieved the direct number of the Leith CID office and called it. DC Alice Cowan’s strong voice filled the car as she answered.

‘Alice,’ he said, ‘DCC here. . sorry, chief constable here. Is DI Pye there?’

‘No, sir. He and Ray, sorry, DS Wilding, are out.’

‘Do you know if they’ve got anything solid on Ed Collins yet?’

‘Hell yes, sir. They’ve just gone to arrest him. He’s been working with Coben. I’m on to Collins’s bank just now. He’s been receiving regular payments for months and not from his employer. We’re trying to trace the source.’

‘What’s he been doing for Coben? Do we know?’

Cowan hesitated. ‘Surveillance, sir.’

‘What do you mean, surveillance? Be specific, Alice.’

‘He’s been taking photographs, sir,’ she replied, her voice for once expressionless, ‘of DCC Martin.’

‘Has he now,’ Skinner growled. ‘When Sammy and Ray pick him up, you tell them I want him brought up to Fettes.’

As he ended the call, McIlhenney glanced across at him. ‘Is that a good idea, boss?’ he asked. ‘You interviewing the guy?’

‘Don’t worry,’ the chief constable replied. ‘I’m not going near him. He’s for you.’

‘Even so, the thought of you being in the same building as the guy who photographed Alex. .’

‘Hmmm.’ A low growl seemed to fill the car ‘This boy’s fucking lucky I’m not sending him up to Dundee.’ Then he brightened up. ‘Come on, Neil, we’re on a roll here. I love it when that happens. What else do we need?’ Almost instantly he answered his own question. ‘We need to know about Henry Mount’s role in this mysterious project. And we need to know something else, maybe the key to wrapping up this whole business. Who’s his agent?’

‘His son, Colin.’

‘Colin? I knew he was his father’s manager, but not that he acted for him.’

‘The previous agent retired last year; Colin took over from him. George Regan discovered that when he spoke to him.’

‘Regan.’ He picked up his phone again, opened his seemingly unending contacts folder and found a mobile number for the East Lothian DI. He grinned, ‘No one’s beyond my reach, chum,’ then called it. ‘George,’ he said into the microphone above the rear-view mirror. ‘Skinner here. What are you up to?’

‘Hoping for a miracle sighting of Hugo Playfair, sir. Otherwise we’re completing door-to-door inquiries. I’ve followed up everybody who was in the Golf Inn on Sunday evening, and I’ve found half a dozen people who remember seeing Mustafic leaving there, then turning into Middleshot Road.’

‘That’s an odd way back to the bents,’ Skinner mused. ‘But with all that beer in him, he was probably a bit wandered. When I think about it, Middleshot would have led him to the top of the path where he died. Any sightings of Playfair, or anyone else following him?’

Regan sighed. ‘None, sir.’

‘No, that’s the way it goes sometimes. George, this investigation has moved into the stage where we do everything the book says, then hope we get lucky. Your DS can keep an eye on it for a while. I’ve got another task for you. You’ve met Henry Mount’s family, I believe.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Good. We know for sure how Henry died; the cigar that was used to kill him was in a box bought in Edinburgh last week from one of Paula Viareggio’s luxury delis, for cash, by a man going by the name of Coben. I want you to go back and see them, Trudy and Colin. . I know them both, by the way. . and to ask them about a few things. The first is a project we believe Henry was working on with Ainsley Glover, something new, nothing to do with the Petra Jecks books.’

‘His wife mentioned something yesterday,’ the DI remarked. ‘She said he’d been speaking to Glover about it, so she thought it was financial.’

‘Maybe it was, but I doubt that. We need anything we can get on it, however trivial you or they might think it is. We need to know also whether Henry’s career before he became a writer took him anywhere near Yugoslavia. Finally, and this is definitely one for Colin, for Trudy won’t have a clue: we need to know how that cigar box got into Henry’s possession, and whether the name Coben rings any bells.’

‘Understood, sir,’ Regan replied. ‘I’m not far from their house; I’m on my way.’